


La beauté rencontre la bête

by frogo



Series: Univers de ballet [2]
Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Ballerino Will Graham, Ballet, But in France, First Meetings, Hannibal Lecter Being an Asshole, Hannibal swears he isn’t a stalker, M/M, Will doesn’t want to admit to himself how much he doesn’t mind it, he is tho, i love that that’s an actual tag, will blushing excessively, you can assume they’re speaking french the entire time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:41:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28377888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frogo/pseuds/frogo
Summary: Will and Hannibal met years ago in France, Will as an up and coming Ballerino and Hannibal as a young man graduating college and getting ready to leave for Italy. Their paths converge and they are equally enamored. Hannibal decides to stay awhile, enchanted by the lithe dancer whose eyes seem to pierce into his soul.Hannibal watched him from afar for a long while before they officially met. He is....intrigued. Obsessively.
Relationships: (past) Will Graham/Matthew Brown, Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Series: Univers de ballet [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2027564
Comments: 4
Kudos: 79





	La beauté rencontre la bête

**Author's Note:**

> Hey y’all! Back with offerings of this weird ‘verse that plagues me. If you haven’t tuned in to the first installment, I recommend you go check it out, but it’s not required for you to understand the events of this one :) 
> 
> Gist of it is, Will is a ballerino (male ballet dancer) and Hannibal is about to leave France to study abroad, particularly in Italy. They’re around 20 in the events of this fic. You can assume that they’re speaking french, seeing as they both grew up around the language and are in France. 
> 
> Title = Beauty meets the beast 
> 
> Now that that’s aside, Hope you enjoy! 💖

Will was being followed.

He had been followed for a long time. In his past, he’d encountered many fans and cultivated quite a name for himself for his gruff nature and treatment of said fans, whether or not they were approaching him with a malicious or simply admiring intent. 

However, the man that had been following him for the better part of his stay in France was different. He could tell. He hadn’t always been different, at first Will had barely noticed him, and really that should’ve been his first warning. 

In the past, his stalkers were pitifully easy to spot. If not for their painfully obvious staring and position relative to him, then their easily recognizable features gave them away if he saw them more than once. They were typically unattractive and unfit, physically. They leaked their emotions everywhere, and he could practically taste their obsession. 

This man, though....he lurked in the shadows. Will could feel his gaze some moments, when he was out with his fellow company members or enjoying the city, his eyes had even followed him onto the stage. He would only catch glimpses, the precise motion of a polished oxford turning into the dark of an alley, an arrogant hat tipped low in his direction in deference, once he saw the shine of a watch in the shadows of a booth when he was out drinking with friends, as though reminding him of the time and his early start in the morning.

But never, never did he see any emotions. No matter how many times he tried to seek out intentions or catch the sheen of desire. His thoughts slithered out of reach, dangerous and as enticing as a snakes. That should’ve been his second warning. 

He really needed to stop thinking about him.

Will didn’t feel like he was seeing things where they weren’t. Though his fellow dancers told him as much when he confided in them one night, uncharacteristically drunk. They laughed and called him self centered, and that just because he was the male lead danseur didn’t mean he had that many fans, even stalkers. But he’d never been wrong about these things! Sure, his professional career was still in its early stages, and though his name cycled through with higher and more refined ballet stars, he was still considered young and had many years to go until he was anywhere near their bracket.

(Still....he wasn’t sure if he could even get a restraining order on the grounds of ‘he makes me uncomfortable and no I’ve never seen his face but I know what type of shoes he wears’.)

But his stalker clearly disagreed. And so did the many excessive, bordering on embarrassing, bouquets of flowers that decorated his dressing room every night after a performance. Some were beautiful arrangements with touching cards, other garish colors and flowers that smelled so strongly that they had to be thrown before any card could be read or name identified and banned from backstage gift-giving.

It was during one performance of Romeo and Juliet that Will came tantalizingly close to meeting the man who’d been crowding the shadows that followed Will wherever he went. It was a particularly exhausting night, as Will had struggled to get any sleep the night before, too many dreams he tried to call nightmares filled with his fantasies and natures he kept locked deep within himself. 

That, and the fact that his ex was making sharing the stage with him an absolute torture. After their breakup, Matt had been reserved and glared at Will whenever they were in the same room together. But the company’s recent tour through Europe and long stay in France had added another layer of tension to their already strained professional distance. 

When they first got together, back in the states, they’d had some good months in the beginning. They’d tip toe around each other and were trying to conceal how love drunk they were. Then, everything changed when they moved in with each other. Matt revealed himself to be a sadistic dick who got off on Will’s relative inexperience and hated when he talked to anyone who wasn’t him. He would rave and scream at Will when he came back to their apartment after visiting friends, and even eventually, practicing at the studio. Will endured it all, convinced that Matt would revert back to his loving, funny boyfriend if given enough time and apologies.

Will left him the first time Matt hit him. It was the catalyst to one of the worst breakups he’d ever had. It seemed fitting, looking back. A horrible end to a horrible relationship. 

And a horrible performance, if the night’s proceedings followed the same pattern Matt seemed to want it to. 

It wasn’t too noticeable at first, a heated glare and maybe some whispered insults if they were close enough. Will kept a serene smile through it all, because he was a professional. He almost lost it though, when nearing the end of the second act, as Will was about to enter center stage from where he had been standing passively on the sidelines Matt gave him a harsh kick to the calf, it had such force behind it that Will stumbled almost fell. Almost. 

Will met his queue as Romeo, concluding the second act with a solo dance and a burning calf. For a moment he let himself worry over whether or not the audience saw Matt’s blow, before pushing it from his mind. He had been on the sidelines with several other background dancers, it was highly unlikely they saw anything besides a slight shift. 

He leapt and pranced across the stage until the curtain drew, but as soon as the thick velvet closed fully he slumped. It was intermission.

He limped over to his dressing room and fended off other concerned comments about his leg so that he could ice it and get rid of some of the ache. 

On his way there, He caught a glimpse of Matt. Standing, or lurking rather, and staring. He smiled, and Will felt like an oily glaze had covered him. He was just about to open his mouth to tell Matt just how much he hated him when it happened. 

A hand shot out from the shadows behind Matt, and closed around his neck. He was jerked into the darkness with less than a yell that was quickly swallowed up by the cacophony of danseurs and directors and stage hands.

Will went to his dressing room. 

Matt wasn’t a vital part of the performance, and another ballerino covered for him - most everyone knew everyone’s choreography well enough. Nobody went searching for him, assuming he left in a fit after Will didn’t fall flat on his face and embarrass himself. 

Barely a minute before intermission would end, Will checked the shadows of the hall where Matt had been standing. He walked into the darkness and pressed his hands to the brick wall, before turning around. He could see himself as the man must have. Something shivered through him, starting at his toes and working its way up his body. He _liked_ what the man had done for him. His watcher. 

When Will left for the stage, his calf didn’t throb, his heart didn’t pound with nerves. He was calm. And when he danced, he didn’t look through the crowd to try and find his mysterious follower as he usually did on other nights. Instead, he closed his eyes where he could or looked straight into the lights and imagined he was dancing in front of an empty auditorium. Only him and the shadowy figure dedicated to him. The fantasy ruined when applause assaulted his senses. He flinched. Suddenly he wished he was anywhere but here, the atmosphere suddenly oppressive, the lights too bright, everything was so loud and too much. 

Still smiling and bowing, he rushes off the stage with long strides. His head pounding, he grits his teeth and tries to make himself as inconspicuous as possible. What was he thinking? Letting himself lose focus and fantasize about his _stalker_ during a performance? He mentally berated himself and resolves not to think about the man. He’s got to focus, this was one of their last nights in France, he can’t screw it up or else it’ll be his neck as lead danseur. 

He won’t think about a stalker during the romance scene. 

He did. 

And he did once more the next morning, when the front page of the Parisian was headlined with Matt’s death. Someone managed to snap a picture of the crime scene, and Will’s heart pounded with what he saw.

It was so....intimate. He was flayed and his decapitated body arranged into a heart surrounded by flowers, hundreds of them. 

But in the creases and vessels of the ‘heart’, and framing the scene were sweet Williams. Dozens and dozens of them. They were everywhere.

Will was entranced. This was his admirer, his stalker, his man in the shadows. He took Matt and transformed him from the pig he was into an elevated love letter. Matt would’ve hated it. Will found himself blushing and averting his eyes demurely. He put the newspaper down before he would do something so ridiculous as to buy it and frame it. 

Suddenly he felt them. His gaze burned like a brand, and felt like a thick blanket resting on his shoulders. Turning quickly, he searched the street for any signs of the man. Crowds of tourists and locals alike surround him. But there, suddenly he sees a familiar oxford. An arrogant hat. The shine of a watch on a veined wrist handing money to a vendor. 

Will’s feet move without any thought on his part toward the man, pushing through people and eventually he’s walking, then jogging towards the man. He’s purchasing flowers. 

Sweet Williams.

An armload of them. He’s turning away from Will. His polished oxfords clicking and his arrogant hat tipped in thanks to the woman manning the stall. His watch disappearing underneath the frankly absurd amount of flowers. 

Will calls out to him, desperate, as he’s about to vanish into the crowd. 

Finally, he stops and turns to meet Will as he finally catches up to him. 

He’s beautiful. 

They stare each other for a moment. The silence stretches long, and suddenly Will has to say something, anything, to him. If for no other reason than to hear his voice. 

“You’re stalking me.” He meant to say, ‘you killed Matt.’ 

“I admire from afar to feed my "appreciation of beauty.” He smiled thinly, as though he had sensed Will’s other intended statement. Both were factually correct, but that was neither here nor there at the moment. 

“Admiring from afar where ever I go is an obsession, not an appreciation.” Will blushed slightly at his accent, but refused to be deterred. 

“Obsession and appreciation are often considered to cause or affect the other.” God he sounds like a psychiatrist. Maybe this was a mistake.

“And you existing near me is the cause of my bad day.” _You’re a fowl liar Will Graham._

“Come now, must you talk so about my affect-ions dear Will?” Will ignored the horrible pun and the twinkle in the man’s eye with the delivery. Damn stalker. 

“See, that, right there. How do you know my name?”

“The playbill.”

His cheeks flushed. “Jesus- look, sir, I really don’t have time for games right now. I’ve got practice in an hour and I don’t-“

“Have dinner with me.”

“Excuse me?” That same hot something he’d felt last night in the shadows shivered through Will’s body at the request, sounding desperate enough to be mistaken as a demand. 

“Come have dinner with me. It would be my greatest honor to cook for such an enchanting creature.”

“This creature has a name.” 

“Why yes darling.”

“It’s Will, jackass.” Why did he tell him his name if he already knows it? This conversation was rapidly going off the rails, but then again, what did Will really expect, talking to a stalker?

“And mine is Hannibal”, Suddenly his obsession made sense. All the puzzle pieces lined up and Will felt like a real idiot for not seeing it sooner. 

“Hannibal? As in, Hannibal, ‘I send flowers to your dressing room at every performance that crowd any space they exist in and quote Shakespeare and Dante in the card attached ‘?, Hannibal?”

“Yes.” His eyes gleamed with gratification at having made such an impression that Will remembered his name. 

“Oh my god- you’re _obsessed_ with me-“

“I am intrigued.” He counters, defensively.

“Obsessively.”

This got a slight pause from the man - the _stalker_ and _killer_ Will why are you _talking to him_ \- 

“Will you have dinner with me?” 

He seemed to have caught on to Will’s mental debate and seized the opportunity to catch him unaware. Will makes a decision. A monumentally stupid decision. 

“If you stop stalking me.” Will can see Hannibal’s offense at being reduced to such a frivolous, low life term and got sick pleasure from seeing his eyes flicker darkly whenever he called him such. 

“I never _stalked_ -“

“Yes you did, and if you keep denying it I’m never having dinner with you.” He says, petulantly. 

“So you will?” 

“Will you agree to stop stalking me and sending me flowers?” His mouth twitched and a small crease formed around it. He’d develop a wrinkle there in a few years if he kept that up. Will balked at himself for wanting to see it develop. 

“Yes.” It seemed to cause him physical pain to agree to something where he was in the disadvantage. If only in name. 

“Fine. When?”

“When are you free?” More than just a polite question, Hannibal had realized how skittish his behavior made Will and was letting it be known that the ball was in his court. 

“Thursday, at 6. I have the night off.” Why did you tell him you have the night off, Graham? He could kill you now, Jesus. 

The monster that lurked in Hannibal’s belly roared in triumph, and it took great effort to keep his face passive when he answered, but Will saw it anyway, “It would be my pleasure to host for you, dear Will.”

“Yeah, sure. I’ve got practice, don’t follow me there or I’m canceling dinner.” Never mind the fact that he had no way to contact Hannibal. 

He tipped his head a little in the mockery of a gentleman. 

“Of course, dear Will”, he said, trying to pitch his voice seductively in an effort to entice him, but Will was already stalking away. 

Turning over his shoulder, Will raises his voice to have the last word, “And stop calling me dear!” 

He can almost feel Hannibal’s sharp grin as he turns away to hide his own giddy smile. 

FIN.

**Author's Note:**

> How was it? Lemme know in the comments!
> 
> Beta’d (improved) by the ever-amazing [ Bismuth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bismuthhhhhhhhh/pseuds/bismuthhhhhhhhh)! Seriously, go show them some love, they’ve got a really amazing upcoming fic. 
> 
> Your kudos strangle Matt in the shadows, your comments buy sweet williams for a blushing William.


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